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Double Plus Undead
Dec 24, 2010
2. It's not like Smith and us are friends or anything. Also yeah, let's get more sleep.

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Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
Let's get more sleep and refresh that brown coat of paint on our nose.

quote:

You're still not used to the grinding rocks of Varkath's laughter. "An exciting opportunity, she says. Though she is no expert in Craftwork negotiations, and there is no obvious reason Smith should want her along."

"I am here, sir," you say. "And I am excited for the challenge."

"You'll be in another world. Far from help. Bound by contracts of your own."

"There's a first time for everything."

"Then you'll be ready to leave in the morning."

Which shuts you up, which settles it for the meeting. Tomorrow, you're bound for the demon realm with an executive you barely trust, even if you did save his life once. Sort of.

You retreat to your office to gather your equipment and check your mail. Plenty of people expect work from you in the next few days, which leaves you with apologies to write and send. At least you have a good excuse. You wonder what you should post on your office door. "Out of town" doesn't quite cover it.

Among the piles of requests and documents marked "FYI" (and why do people do that anyway, it's not as if it takes more than a minute's thought to explain what the document is and what action you should take based on it), you find a few pages that have nothing to do with work.

Cass Chen posted:

I heard about your trip. Is there any way we can talk before you go? Outside the office, I mean. —C

Vega posted:

Congratulations on your new assignment. The partners show a great deal of faith in you. But please don't take affront when I suggest caution. Can we speak in private?

(It's signed with his seal, of course.)

And beneath the rest there's a note from Wakefield, on firm stationery.

Wakefield posted:

Wen, we need to talk. —W.
Wakefield's writing is sharp--even her loops have points.

You don't have time for private conferences, and you have too much to finish today to call off work early, but maybe one of them could meet you at home?


1. Ask Chen to meet me at my apartment.
2. Ask Vega to meet me at my apartment.
3. Ask Wakefield to meet me at my apartment.
4. Ignore the notes.

Long story short, should we go hook up with someone before we head for demon-infested waters with a client who we barely trust? Or let's avoid the whole poo poo-where-you-eat routine and concentrate on business? Personal matters can wait.

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 75%
Craft: 87%
Cunning: 92%
Determination: 66%

Sleep: 52%
Gunner/Socialite: 77%/23%

Soul: 6240
Debt: :woop:

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 73%
Ashleigh Wakefield: 70%
Pat Ngabe: 76%
Halcyon Vega y Alatriste: 71%

Golan Varkath: 55%
Damien Stone: 81%
Angelica Nebuchadnezzar: 73%

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Don't trust Vega. Wakefield owes us. Chen is our Wingwoman.

Wakefield for logic argued by following poster.

wedgekree fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Jan 4, 2019

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Meet with Wakefield. They owe us and have personal experience with Demons who are against Smith. We're about to go with Smith into the Demons' Den. Wakefield probably has the most pertinent information.

Dong Quixote
Oct 3, 2015

Fun Shoe

achtungnight posted:

Meet with Wakefield. They owe us and have personal experience with Demons who are against Smith. We're about to go with Smith into the Demons' Den. Wakefield probably has the most pertinent information.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


achtungnight posted:

Meet with Wakefield. They owe us and have personal experience with Demons who are against Smith. We're about to go with Smith into the Demons' Den. Wakefield probably has the most pertinent information.

blackmongoose
Mar 31, 2011

DARK INFERNO ROOK!
The language in the post about hooking up makes it sound like this is the obligatory Bioware pre-final mission awkward sex scene so I vote No one. We need our sleep so that we can recover from being dead and take out the demon that killed us.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable

blackmongoose posted:

The language in the post about hooking up makes it sound like this is the obligatory Bioware pre-final mission awkward sex scene so I vote No one. We need our sleep so that we can recover from being dead and take out the demon that killed us.

Pretty much, though we can just vote to meet with her and not get into the awkward stuff. Stay professional.

Pharnakes
Aug 14, 2009
In that case meet Varkath but keep it professional

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
We're going to meet with Wakefield and keep it professional. How is she doing, anyway?

quote:

You dash off a note to Wakefield, and head home to pack. You finish work, make it home around half-past nine, and set yourself to frantic packing. Drawers roll open of their own accord and items fly through the air into your suitcase. Toothbrush, scalpel set, silver thread, fetish set, compass and astrolabe, lurid paperback, what else, what else...


1. Books of horn. Reference materials. Truenames so I can call the firm if there's an emergency.
2. I've always wanted to read this book. Plus, I should bring the blue suit, and another charcoal, and some ties, and I wonder if they'll have dry cleaning in the demon plane...
3. Mortar and pestle, retort, centrifuge, bloodcloth, a few test tubes, pen nibs of ivory, bone, horn, and drat it I have silver around here somewhere...
4. Rope. People always need rope. First-aid kit. Compass. Knife. A few tracking beads. Odds and ends.

It'd be nice if our luggage can pack itself.

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 75%
Craft: 87%
Cunning: 92%
Determination: 66%

Sleep: 53%
Gunner/Socialite: 77%/23%

Soul: 6240
Debt: :woop:

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 76%
Ashleigh Wakefield: 70%
Pat Ngabe: 76%
Halcyon Vega y Alatriste: 71%

Golan Varkath: 55%
Damien Stone: 86%
Angelica Nebuchadnezzar: 73%

There was a bit of an error with my reading relationship values last go. Sorry.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


1

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
1. Nice to be trusted with firm senior partners’ true names. I’m guessing Stone is Wolf, Varkath is Ram, and Nebuchadnezzar is Hart.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Yeah, 1

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

3. Let's get ready to do science to some demons.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable

quote:

Good, good. No sense being without your tools when you're in the depth of another dimension.

You're debating how to fold your jackets when you hear a knock on the door. You open the door, and find Wakefield waiting, dressed in a charcoal suit and a white overcoat. She sweeps into the room without waiting for an invitation, chin high.

"Wen. A pleasure as always." Her demi-mask drinks the light of your bedroom. The skeletal hand she keeps in the pocket of her trousers. You try not to stare; she catches you, and smiles, bitterly. "I haven't been into an apartment of yours since you started with VNS. This has become a reasonable domicile, if a bit nouveau."


1. "Nouveau? These furnishings are classic."
2. "Well, as you are no doubt aware, I base all my decisions exclusively on what a small collection of ladies who lunch in another city entirely will say at their cocktail parties."
3. "It's a place to sleep, that's all."
4. "Can I get you something to drink?"

Wakefield, you may be a skeleton lady now, but that's not going to stop us from bringing in the sass.

quote:

Wakefield smiles, and for once there's no hint of mockery there. "As do we all."

"Why did you send me that letter?"

"You're about to take a business trip," she says.

"How in all the hells do you know that?"

"One hears things. Especially when one has taken a particular interest in the relations between Mister Smith and the demon world."

This time, through force of will, you hold eye contact, even though you really want to look at her mask.

"While I was...possessed...I did not have much free access to the creature in question," Wakefield continues. "But I could tell that its business with Smith is unfinished, and, having been banished in our world, it lingers there. It has, of course, business with you as well. All of this, above and beyond the question of whether you do or should trust the obviously pseudonymous Mister Smith."


1. "I don't like this situation, either. But I'm going."
2. "I'll be fine."
3. "Oh gods, you're actually worried about me."

Interesting. So at least we've got confirmation that our business with that demon isn't probably done, and with our client about to prance straight into the figurative lion's den...

...Well, we'll be fine.

quote:

"'Demons' and 'fine' are seldom words uttered in the same sentence," Wakefield replies. "Not to mention any complications Smith may introduce. If something were to happen, I would not wish it to be my responsibility for not warning you."

She stands in the center of your living room, and the silence hardens around you both. The pair of you stand on the blade of a knife, and you're turning, turning.


1. "Thank you, Wakefield."
2. "I should get some sleep."
3. "I'll be fine."

We'll totally be fine. But thanks for the warning, anyway.

quote:

"Of course," she says, and sketches a bow, and turns to go. She leaves you in the silence of your living room, beside your open suitcase. You listen to the nothing for a bit, then finish packing and get yourself to bed, though later than you'd hoped.

Your commute to Krieg Tower takes longer than normal. Heavy traffic on the carriageway, and a pileup at the intersection of Saitoh and Kosigan, but it's not just the traffic. Even pedestrians seem to have slowed to a stately stroll, and the sun takes longer to climb the sky than usual.

When you reach the VNS lobby on the thirty-third floor, John Smith is there already, waiting. He always seems smaller in person than he did in that mirror so many years ago--though he doesn't seem to have aged much. Still smooth-featured, still gray-dusted, still lipless, still immaculately dressed. He extends one manicured hand, which you shake by professional reflex.

"Miss Wen. It has been too long. I am pleased that the partners saw fit to permit you to accompany me."


1. "I hope this trip will be less...remarkable than our previous encounters."
2. "I'm not."
3. "Why did you ask for me, anyway?"
4. "The pleasure's mine."

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 75%
Craft: 87%
Cunning: 92%
Determination: 72%

Sleep: 53%
Gunner/Socialite: 77%/23%

Soul: 6240
Debt: :woop:

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 76%
Ashleigh Wakefield: 73%
Pat Ngabe: 76%
Halcyon Vega y Alatriste: 71%

Golan Varkath: 55%
Damien Stone: 86%
Angelica Nebuchadnezzar: 73%

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
pleasure’s mine, Mr Bond Smith.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


3

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
The pleasure's mine.

quote:

"How gratifying that you should say so."

"They're waiting for us upstairs." You gesture to the lifts. "After you?"

You ride up to the fifty-fifth floor together, neither speaking. Smith hums slightly in the elevator, a song you don't recognize. When you arrive, the name partners are waiting. Smith steps forward to meet them, hand out, smiling. Before you can follow him, you hear a voice of chimes and wind behind you.

"Excuse me?"

Your turn. It's R'ok, of course--one arm laden with a pile of binders. A few years of residence on this plane have ended up well for him. The job's better than his previous, and last year you went to his art opening. Didn't understand much of it, but then, you didn't expect to. He beckons you with one claw.

Looks like Smith and the partners will be busy for another few seconds, so you step to one side. "What's up, R'ok?"

"I hear you are going home." That last word has a strange resonance in his mouth. How would you sound after a few years in a place where even the physics were different? "With him." He points to Smith.

"That's the plan."

R'ok touches his chest, and you hear a slight crack. He extends his claw to you, and within it, you see a sliver of glass. "Here. If you are in trouble, this will allow you to call upon my people for aid."


1. "That's generous, but I don't need it. I'll be fine."
2. "Thank you. That's so kind."
3. "You're worried about nothing." But I take the token anyway.

:unsmith:

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
2. Never turn down a friendly demon.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.
2.Trusting a demon has never, ever gone badly.

Dong Quixote
Oct 3, 2015

Fun Shoe
2, seems legit

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


2. R'ok owes us one, so we can probably count on him.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable

quote:

You hold the sliver up to the light. It's scalpel-edged, and you can barely grip it without cutting yourself. You see scratches on the surface, like writing. Maybe an insignia? Beautiful, but it means nothing to you.

"The world waits for you," R'ok says, and scuttles away down a side passage without meeting your gaze. You turn back to join the partners, and slip the token into your pocket. You'll have to find a pouch or something for it later.

Nebuchadnezzar nods to you as you approach. "Your summoning contracts arrived an hour ago, as promised."

An aide hands you a scroll, which you unroll and scan. The contract repeats its terms in High Telomiri, demonaic, and Kathic, with a bold declaration at the top that all the translations have identical meanings. Reading the Kathic, you imagine linguists spinning in their graves.

Upon your entry into the demon plane, you'll have a body roughly equivalent to yours in this world, and be subject to the equivalent of human limits as regards action over a distance, causality, and so forth, anchoring you in the local physics. Fine. In exchange for this, you and Smith pledge to negotiate in good faith a deal between Transdimensional Thaumaturgics and Akargath. The contract's void in the event of your death.


1. "Standard summoning deal. Seems good."
2. "Why the good faith clause?"
3. "Why so many limits on my capabilities?"

Seems like a solid contract, and in a weird-rear end dimension as Hell, keeping physics local is perhaps the least we can do to avoid projectile vomiting into the ether or something. But why the good faith clause?

quote:

"Because," Smith says with a slight smile, "they don't trust me. Especially not after our last engagement ended in such an intriguing manner."

"Not a lot of trust to go around," you say.

"Well, this is Hell, after all."

"Indeed," Nebuchadnezzar says. "Now, if you'll step into the pentagram?"

The summoning chamber takes up the entire Krieg Tower penthouse. You stand in a room all of glass, and, with Smith, you step into a pentagram acid-etched in silver onto a broad flat stone that must have been quarried in Camlaan somewhere. Your skin chills when you cross the line.

Black tapers are lit around the perimeter of the room. Twelve of the firm's senior Craftsmen and Craftswomen step forth, hooded and cloaked, faces invisible--you know them from their voices, you've passed them in the break room, but for the purposes of summoning they must be anonymous. Those who seek you from the demon plane lack your true name, or any secret keys to your soul, so they must settle for precise geometry to ensure they summon the correct person in the correct form.

The leader of the group--it might be Nebuchadnezzar based on the height, but you forget this knowledge with the practice and mental discipline of a true Craftswoman--raises hands to the sky, and the black flames leap. The sun dies. Clouds burn away overhead. Stars shine, bright, sharp, and the shadows feed on their fire. You feel yourself seen. Known to your marrow. Your skin's flayed from you and you are vivisected, stuck to an entomologist's board, pinned open while immense eyes observe the strange machines of your soul.

Shadows close around you like a fist, and the world ends.

And then it starts again.

The sun's wrong. Or your eyes are. Or the light. Or your heart.

A star hangs in the sky overhead, hundreds of millions of miles across and burning, exploding, searing, hot enough to evaporate steel and transform flesh to plasma. The photosphere wriggles, and worms burst out from it to crawl across the stars, fanged mouths chewing chewing chewing at the sky…

And it's a sun. Just a sun, shining down onto a city of crystal spires, a city of towering thorns pressed against the jugular of the sky, a city of sharp edges and every edge caked with the blood of the slain. A city where the wind screams as it blows.

A city just like any other: buildings you almost recognize, with windows, and lights, and walls. Turn your head one way, and they are crystalline monstrosities of trapped lightning; turn it another, and see the seams amid the brick.

You look down at yourself, and understand. Your body is crystal, and shimmering, and so's your suit. This double, triple, quadruple vision is the senses the summoning contract gave you trying to integrate with your mind.

This, you realize, is how a demon in your world sees everything, all the time.

"...Metal." Your voice sounds like a wine glass made to sing.

"Indeed," a familiar voice replies.

You're comfortable enough with this strange altered sight to interpret the world around you. You stand on a rooftop platform, within a summoning circle. White flames flicker around the circle's edge. Smith's on his knees, breathing heavily--Smith who looks normal if you squint, and crystal-faceted if you let your eyes relax.

Outside the circle's edge stand seven robed spider-mantis-things, their many eyes gleaming. Or is that what you really see after all, or only what you expect to see? Blink, and you're surrounded by radiant forms of light, with spreading wings…

You shake your head to clear it. You recognized that voice. Who?

You don't have time to give your confusion voice. The robed figure in front of you removes its hood with two long chitinous claws, and you see the graven face of K'lint, R'ok's father. He bows to you, slightly. "Greetings, demons. And welcome. It is time…to feed."


1. "Wait. What?"
2. "Hold on, can't we talk about this first?"
3. I call upon the Craft to defend myself.
4. "You basically just mean dinner, don't you?"

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
1. wait, what?.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Wait, What?

If the person on the other end is not hostile, then we will get an explanation of what's up. If the person on teh other end is hostile, then they will monologue about the things they have summoned us for.

And the summoning was supposed to have been done well and is standard so hopefully it means that we're not going to be eaten right off the bat.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Pooncha posted:

The contract's void in the event of your death.

Hmmmmmnnnnn..... (I haven't played the game, no idea if this will come up)

Let's be smug bastards: "You basically just mean dinner, don't you?"

Dong Quixote
Oct 3, 2015

Fun Shoe
Wait, what?

WLMortis
Sep 28, 2001
Nebulosis Defunctus
Slippery Tilde
"You basically just mean dinner, don't you?"

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
:what:

quote:

K'lint's mandibles clack in what you suppose is a local equivalent of laughter. "I believe you have mistaken my meaning. The sun"--He points, but you resist the temptation to look again at that horrible/normal star--"falls toward the horizon, and we take a customary meal. Which we have prepared for ourselves, and for you."

"You mean, it's time for dinner."

"That is what I said."

"It's morning, our time," you say as Smith struggles to his feet. But you do feel hungry.

"Your time is not relevant. The bodies you wear are original to this plane. And they require sustenance."

Your stomach agrees with him. "Can we leave the circle?"

"Certainly," he replies. "Leaving the circle merely signals your final acceptance of the terms of the compact."


1. "Fair."
2. I stay inside the circle.
3. I help Smith to his feet.
4. "And the compact binds you as well?"

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 77%
Craft: 87%
Cunning: 93%
Determination: 72%

Sleep: 53%
Gunner/Socialite: 77%/23%

Soul: 6240
Debt: :woop:

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
4. Let’s make sure of all our limitations before we go forward.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
4

Yes, let's check our legalese first

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


4

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
Always make sure the compact's secure before jumping off.

quote:

"Of course. Were it not binding upon us, you would not be here."

Seems fair.

You step across the line, and feel something like reality--some excuse for it anyway--settle back upon your shoulders. "Lead the way."

Your minders lead you downstairs, into the heart of the demonic tower, though beyond that your sense of direction falters again. You're pretty certain you just walked in a circle only to end somewhere other than where you began. For that matter, you're confident that when you turned the last corner you saw yourself turning away at the far end of the hall. Your mind's still clearly getting the hang of the local geometry.

"This is the hive of our clutch," K'lint says. "You will stay here"--indicating with a forelimb a long winding flight of stairs--"in rooms prepared according to the manner of your people. Retreat to them when you are exhausted."

You come to a large pair of double doors. K'lint clacks something in his demon-tongue, and the doors roll open. "Until then, enjoy the banquet."

Say whatever you like about Smith and his repeated battles with the demon plane, you'd have a much kinder impression of all parties concerned if they featured this level of feasting more prominently. The sun has set during your descent, though there doesn't seem to have been nearly enough time for that when you add it all up. Whatever. The stars are out, their constellations as alien as everything else in this strange plane. Dancers and spiders and webs and geometric shapes--only when you blink they're not stars at all, but massive eyes unknowably far away, each one staring at you.

The party, though, is grand. You sit at a long table beside Smith and K'lint and demons of many shapes and forms--most insectine, mantises, and centipedes with children's faces and immensely tall water striders with female torsos and no heads but mouths all over, and perhaps that's why he said "clutch" earlier.

Dinner turns out to be something best described as a steak if they made steaks out of sex and hope and joy, accompanied by a red wine with notes of autumn childhood happiness and a light finish of your first kiss. Which is all good until you begin to ponder what they killed to make a steak that tastes like that, and which grapes they crushed to earn that wine. Music plays--you think it's music, though sometimes the strings sound suspiciously as if they're screaming.

How do you spend the party?


1. I talk to our host.
2. I mill around and dance.
3. Talk to Smith.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
3. Talk to the man who brought us here.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Talk to Smith

Dong Quixote
Oct 3, 2015

Fun Shoe
Smith

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Talk to host

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.
Host. We’ll have time to talk to our client.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
Talking to Smith wins out. Be warned; this is going to be heavy on the :words:.

quote:

Outside of your chat with Smith before the mirror on the day of your struggle with the demons, the pair of you have never had a conversation. So you pour more of the suspicious wine, and drink rainbows with him.

"Why are you here, anyway?" you ask after you've spent an hour and change growing progressively more intoxicated. (Turns out your body handles whatever passes for liquor here just the same way it does back home.) "Why you?"

"We need their help again," Smith says, and raises a glass to the eye-stars. "We always need help. And every time they try to take advantage of us. Like last time, you remember--the affair in Southern Kath, their attempts to use us as a beachhead. We need their help but we can't afford to let them outmaneuver us."

"But did you really need to come yourself?"

He's slurring his words more as the night goes on. "Some things you can only do in person."

Late that night--your new, almost-crystal body claims it's late, anyway--you find the double doors, and past them the long, winding stair that seems to go up for much longer than you spent going down at sunset, at the top of which is a row of rooms, all alike.

No way, of course, to tell which door belongs to you. But as you turn to descend once more to the front hall and ask K'lint for help (when you left he was dancing something that looked an awful lot like a samba with the strider-legged female-bodied creature), one door opens of its own accord.

The demons don't seem to have updated these rooms in two centuries or so, and that's a good thing. You have a suite large enough to host a tiny parliament meeting, and a four-poster bed large enough to host an orgy starring an entire gymnastics team with enough room left for a few figure skaters if they showed up late and wanted to join in. Not to mention the a bar, fully stocked, with cut crystal glasses and whisky that's older than you are. And the balcony.

You pour yourself a drink and step out to watch the city, and be watched by the sky.

"Nice view, isn't it?"

The words run together, but the voice is unmistakably human. You look to your right and see Smith, drunk, in a bathrobe, on the balcony of his own room.

He raises a glass in your direction. "What do you think of the demons?"

I don't know about the demons, but I definitely know you're tanked.

quote:

"As a lord." He giggles at that, high-pitched and self-satisfied. "What a world we live in, eh? Drinking with demons who but for that compact would gladly slit our throats, and us perfectly willing to do likewise."

"Are you always this…" Nuts is the first word that comes to mind, but that might strain the boundaries of your professional relationship. "…bloody-minded when you're drunk?"

"Only when drunk and surrounded by the enemies of our entire existence." He gestures at the stars with his glass, fast enough to spill liquor over the rim onto his fingers. "Look at them. They work with us because they know that someday they'll have the chance to destroy us. To steal away all that makes us ourselves. That's the nature of trade: their labor to us, and our souls to them. Unless we beat them to the punch. And me they want to kill especially."

"If that's so, why work with them at all?"

He gestures to his chest, which is bare and pale beneath the open neck of his robe. An amulet hangs there, ebony worked with silver on a silver chain. "Because I have good insurance." He pitches the rest of his liquor over the edge of the balcony, and staggers back into his suite. "Big day tomorrow. Sleep well."

You try.

You expected the meeting, the negotiation, would take place in a conference room of some sort, and that conference rooms would be much the same here as in your world, neutral places, mental and emotional dead zones stable enough for experimentation. Probably with a fake plant in the corner beside a coffee thermos, a pitcher of lukewarm juice, and a box of bad tea.

But K'lint leads you, in a strange eight-legged cart with a driver but no horse, to a towering round structure that more closely resembles a stadium than an office. You hope this is another case of misinterpretation, that in fact you'll be taken to a small office buried within this monstrosity-sized nest of crystal thorns and girders, but the "stadium" analogy holds as you're guided through long, narrow, echoing passages, out a recessed door, and find yourself standing, with Smith, on an oblong field in the center of which stands a round table. K'lint sits across the table; from the stands watch, to your estimation, over a hundred thousand demons.

Smith does not seem concerned. He grins, advances to the table, and takes a seat. The door behind you closes, and you have no choice but to follow, and take your seat beside him.

The stadium goes quiet. When K'lint speaks, his voice echoes over the field.

"Smith. Transdimensional Thaumaturgics has enticed us into contracts before with false promises and lies. We have fought you for years over payment for our previous job. Many of our brethren feel betrayed by the firm that sends you here." All traces of the previous night's levity are gone. You try to think of a leader back home who could discuss a sensitive subject in front of a crowd this size without losing control of it. You can't. Varkath, maybe. "What offers do you make this time?"

Silence. Smith pushes back his chair. He stands. Tugs once on his lapels. Raises his hands. Turns in a slow circle, to face the crowd...

...and you see a red dancing dot of light appear on the small of on his back.

This can't be good.


1. I knock him out of the way.
2. Shield him with Craft.
3. "Get down!"
4. Do nothing. Watch.

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ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


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